


Here Are Lovely Fruit Trees

by silversmith



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Gen, The Problem of Susan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-24 11:20:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4917580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silversmith/pseuds/silversmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she heard the news, she thought, quite coldly: this is <em>Him</em> again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here Are Lovely Fruit Trees

_Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?_

-

When she heard the news, she thought, quite coldly: this is _Him_ again.

She had to identify the bodies, the coroner gripping her elbow the whole time. She thought, I’ve seen more corpses than you, and in a worse state too. 

Later, they handed over all of the effects they found in the wreckage: Mother’s compact, Edmund’s wallet. Twenty-three coloured rings. She knew what those were, of course.

Then she had to deal with the reporters. The man from the Mail wanted a photograph: beautiful young orphan, a railway tragedy. Tell us about your sister, miss. Do you blame British Railways? What do you think about Mr Attlee?

She didn’t think much about Mr Attlee, was the truth: it was so hard to be impressed by grey men in suits. What was the point of running a country if you didn’t have beautiful things, and do great deeds, and make festival with your people?

“He isn’t very inspiring,” she said, which seemed to please them.

In her flat that night, everything was quiet. The rings hummed gently in their paper bag. She tipped them out and looked at them without touching, although she knew that this was silly. She’d been told she couldn’t go back. She could pick up a whole handful of rings and nothing would happen.

Still, she didn’t move her hand.

-

She had just turned twenty-one. But she’d been twenty-one before, after all. Peter had wanted to hold a tournament in her honour but she’d said, oh, for once can we stop having tournaments, and instead they’d had a dance, in the Great Hall at Cair Paravel and spilling out into the gardens in a blaze of golden light, and the mer-people had sung, and there had been fireworks over the sea. She had worn a red velvet dress and soft slippers and danced like she was flying.

It had been a terrible shock to get back to England and find herself in the wrong body. All of the Professor's furniture was too big. Her body remembered height and grace, but when she looked in the mirror she was pasty and short, her movements clumsy. She tried to practise the quick, leaping Narnian dances, but she kept falling over her own feet. She had forgotten how to swim. 

And everything she owned was so ugly, so clumpy and brown. If only she’d been allowed to keep one thing! Her brooch, her slippers, her ruby-eyed chessmen. One little pawn! And she hated her stupid round baby-face. People kept telling her she was pretty. No I’m not, she thought, but one day I will be. 

Or would she? In Narnia, she’d had healthy food, sea air and a Talking Rabbit to brush her hair every night. Now it was so dull and lank. She wound a lock around her finger and wondered if it would ever recover.

And then they went back. When she found that chess piece the first evening, a wild hope rose within her, but she looked at her reflection in the well to find she was as ugly and child-like as ever. And everyone had died. Instead of rejoicing with old friends, they walked all day and all night; they barely slept; they barely ate; they were almost killed. And then, just when it seemed that things were finally going right, they had been politely but firmly ejected, and she would never be going back.

And she was supposed to move on, look forward to a lifetime of duty and damp English winters, watery cocoa and making do. Drawing seams on her legs to imitate stockings. Find me in your own world, Aslan had said, but everything was so mundane here, and not at all glorious.

“I used to feel so sure about Him,” she told the school chaplain. “As though He was always with me. But things are different now.”

“Perfectly normal, dear,” he said, and patted her on the head.

I was with Him when He died, she thought. How dare you patronise me? I remember running with Him, and He was terrible and wild, and very, very close. 

But it was clear that there would be no more of that.

-

Twenty-three rings. A yellow one was missing. Yellow for out and green for home: she had heard the Professor tell the story a hundred times. 

She telephoned the coroner. “Was anyone – missing, after the crash? I mean, not found at all?”

“Train crashes are a nasty business, darling. Don’t you worry your pretty head about it.”

Of course, he was right. And one yellow ring could easily get lost, slipping down between the ballast and the tracks. She poured a whisky and soda and sat down in her armchair.

The rings were still on the coffee table, glowing faintly against the Bakelite. She couldn’t go back to Narnia, but could she go somewhere else? A world of green light, she’d been told, and puddles, waiting to be jumped into.

Any of the others would have done it. But she could only think of one thing worse than finding herself alone in a strange new world, and that was picking up a yellow ring and finding that it did nothing.

Besides, this was her world. This was her life. She didn’t want another; she had things to do here. It wasn’t a question of cowardice. 

She put the spare green ring on her finger and, with a piece of newspaper, swept the rest back into the bag.

-

She didn’t know how the others did it. They had been just as shaken as she was, at the start: falling out of the wardrobe, four thin children in strange, dull clothes. Lucy had been sick the first time she tried to eat rice pudding. 

“That’s nothing,” said Edmund, later. “I once sneaked into the pantry to try the Professor’s wine. It tasted rotten, and I felt dreadful all night. But don’t you remember, we used to have it all the time in Narnia. Golly, I would kill for a Narnian pigeon pie. Do you remember them?”

There was less and less food as the war wore on. Once, she found Lucy in the garden, trying to eat the soil from a flowerbed. Susan dragged her up and slapped her.

“I just remembered,” sobbed Lucy, “I remembered how the trees used to eat it in Narnia – and I thought maybe it would be all right –”

“We’re not in Narnia,” said Susan, “and you’re not a tree. Don’t you dare let me catch you doing that again.”

At least in the house they’d been alone. It was worse the second time, when they had to go straight back to school, and she didn’t see the boys until Christmas. Susan’s marks plummeted. She couldn’t concentrate in class any more. She only felt right when she was doing furious lengths in the school baths, practising for hours until she could swim like she remembered.

-

_Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him._

Susan shifted in her pew. There was an insipid painting over the altar, and people kept staring at her. The train crash girl. She would slip out quickly after the service.

Jesus heard that Lazarus was ill, and then he stayed away for two more days. Why? asked the vicar. He had waited for Lazarus to die, his sisters to bury him, and only then had He made his way to Bethany. The answer, said the vicar, with the air of a conjurer, was that it had all been part of His inscrutable plan. Why, if Lazarus hadn’t died, he would never have been raised from the dead! Of course, Mary and Martha couldn’t have known this at the time. Of course, the world could seem senseless and tragic (and here he made solemn eye contact with Susan). But we must have faith that everything will work out for the best in the end.

That sounded like Him, all right, she thought. He liked to teach you lessons. He liked to make you wait. He had hidden from her in the forest, when she was unhappy and frightened. He had left her crying in a tree, at the mercy of the Wolf, just to be an object lesson for Peter. 

And He’d used her as well: to teach Trumpkin a lesson, to teach Rabadash a lesson. It was needlessly cruel. This whole thing, the death of her whole family, was just one of His lessons writ large, and she was furious with Him. How dare He play with their lives like that? How did Lazarus feel, being left to die and made to come back, just because Jesus thought he had something to prove?

The papers said that the driver had been drinking. It was such a stupid way to die. All the wars they’d been in, and she’d never worried about them, because she’d had faith in Aslan’s plan. Well, apparently His plan was to kill them off before they ever got to do anything worth doing. What was the point of that? They were going to do such good things! Peter was training to be a doctor. Ed was going to clear slums and build new towns. And Lucy, for God’s sake! Lucy was practically a saint already. She spent all her time reading Psalms and walking in forests and looking pious beside streams, and she was planning to go to Africa to convert the heathen. 

Susan had argued with her lately. She was seventeen. Susan had been seventeen twice now; she knew what it was like. But Lucy refused to interest herself in boys, and seemed determined to stay a child forever. She had been the same before, Susan had to admit, but it had seemed all right over there. Here, it just wasn’t practical. But she’d thought they’d have a lifetime to make it up. And now Lucy would never be as old as she had been in Narnia.

-

It had, she thought, all started with America. It was the first time she had really got away from Narnia, and she was surprised to find how much she enjoyed it. It was a relief, really, to focus on enjoying the nice things that were happening now, instead of constantly reliving what she’d lost. They stayed with Father’s friend, Professor Lowe, and his glamorous wife, who raised funds for war orphans, and his daughter Barbara, who wanted to go to law school. There were concerts and fireworks and baseball games, and swimming and sailing at Cape Cod. For the first time in five years, the real world was living up to the land of her dreams.

One night Mrs Lowe had thrown a party, a fundraiser for the refugee children. Mother had bought Susan a new dress in Lord & Taylor, and allowed her to use her make-up. When Susan saw herself in the mirror, she finally recognised herself again. She sailed into the party, feeling like a Queen, and remembered what it was like to make heads turn. She flattered a Senator, put her hand on his arm and described Mrs Lowe’s good work until there were tears in his eyes. She felt a fierce, familiar thrill when he got out his chequebook. She was good at this. Once, she had charmed the Calormene ambassador until he could barely remember his own name, and the Senator was certainly no Calormene ambassador.

Then she got home, and all Ed and Lucy would talk about was ships and dragons and Talking Mice, and they weren’t a bit interested in Harvard or the Statute of Liberty. And Eustace, of all people, was just the same (although, she had to admit, that was an improvement).

And after that, it was always the same. She started working in London – nothing glamorous, just a secretary – but she had her own little flat, and the girls from the office took her to wonderful parties, and she could afford to buy nice clothes and enjoy herself. But the others just wanted to keep reminiscing. She would say, “I’m going Promming next week,” and the others would say, “Oh, do you remember our musicians on the _Splendour Hyaline_!” She would press on, determinedly: “The BBC Chorus are singing Beethoven’s Ninth,” only to get, “I don’t think anything could be as beautiful as the mer-people’s songs.”

Eventually, she snapped. “No, I don’t want to remember our musicians! We’re living here, now, not in some stupid place we used to go when we were kids. I’m not a kid any more. I wish we could just stop talking about it!”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“Fine,” said Edmund. “Tell us about your _parties_ , Susan. Where were you invited this week?”

“That’s not fair,” she said, her face getting hot. “It’s not just about parties, it’s about my whole life here. I barely have an idea what any of you are doing, because all we do when we see each other is moon after Narnia. A place we know none of us are ever going back to.”

Peter said, “Perhaps we’d ask about your life if you could talk about anything other than clothes.”

“You weren’t so jolly priggish about clothes when the Naiads were embroidering your blue tunic with gold,” said Susan. “Or about invitations when the Governor of the Lone Islands was throwing you tournaments. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bed. Feel free to reminisce about killing giants once I’m gone.”

Lucy slipped into her bedroom later. “Did you mean that? About not wanting to talk about Narnia?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I can’t keep thinking about it all the time. It hurts too much.”

“It hurts me too,” said Lucy, “but I think it’s a good kind of pain.”

“Not for me.”

“But there must be a reason we went to Narnia. I mean, us four in particular. Aslan must have wanted to teach us something. And, don’t you think it’ll all be a waste, if we forget about what happened there?”

“It’s all right for you,” said Susan. “Only good things happened to you. I had – oh, I don’t know! – everything I ever wanted taken away from me. But you were always Aslan’s favourite.”

“That’s not true,” said Lucy, and she looked so upset that Susan turned her face into her pillow and didn’t reply.

-

_Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died._

That was naïve, she thought. He wasn’t above letting people die to prove a point. 

The vicar was coming for tea, and Susan was determined to confront him. She understood how Martha felt: she didn’t want tears, she wanted answers. She meant to say, What kind of a God needs to use pain to teach you a lesson? She meant to say, They were so cruel to Him; doesn’t He remember? She meant to say, This is not the kind of God that I could ever love. 

But when she saw him, looking so nervous in his patched-up coat, her resolve failed her. Instead, she said politely, “Did Jesus like some people more than others? When He was on earth, I mean?”

“I’m sorry?” He took a chocolate biscuit.

“I was thinking about Mary and Martha and Lazarus. They weren’t Jesus’ disciples. They were just His friends. Any time He was in Bethany, He visited them, instead of everyone else who lived there. Did He just like them more?”

“Perhaps they needed Him more,” said the vicar cautiously, through a mouthful of crumbs. “He is, after all, the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation.” He was clearly keen to get back to the conversation he had expected.

“And look, here. It keeps saying ‘he whom thou lovest’, ‘Jesus loved them’, ‘behold how He loved him.’”

“Well, that’s no surprise. God is love. He so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. I hope you find that a comforting thought.”

“Thank you,” said Susan. “And there was another thing.”

“Yes?”

“Do you think Jesus had always intended to raise Lazarus, or did He do it on the spur of the moment? Because He knew for four days that Lazarus was dead, and it didn’t seem to bother Him much at the start. But when He got there, and He saw how upset the Jews were, that’s when He started to cry. It’s as though He hadn’t understood what death was like until then, and when He realised how much it hurt, He couldn’t help Himself from stopping it.”

“You have some very unorthodox ideas, young lady,” said the vicar. “I hope you’re not brooding about this passage. Rather, put your hope in the final resurrection. The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. And Death shall be swallowed up in victory.”

“You’ve been very helpful,” said Susan. “Thank you for your time.”

“Any time, my dear. And remember, our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” He slipped another biscuit into his pocket as he left.

-

She still had the Professor’s invitation on her sideboard. She hadn’t been at all pleased to get it. It was a strange, rambling letter, talking about all the odd Narnian feelings he’d been having lately. Perhaps he was going dotty. She phoned her parents’ house, and was relieved when Edmund answered. At least he was reliably rational; she envied the others’ moral certainty, but it did make them difficult to talk to at times. 

“Did you get a letter too? All about the Professor’s odd feelings? I’ve a good mind to write back that it’s probably indigestion.”

“Bit rum, isn’t it? Lucy says he’s convinced we’re needed back in Narnia.”

“That’s a lot of rot. It’s what happens when you become fixated with the place. Anyway, it doesn’t concern us any more. He should talk to Eustace and Jill Pole.”

“They’re invited too. In fact, I’ve already promised Eustace I’ll go; he wants to talk about the Cambridge entrance exam.”

“Well, I hope nobody expects me to be there.”

“Why not? It should be a bit of fun.”

“Should it? You know Polly’s always hated me, and it’s so awkward with the kids. They expect to be whisked away to a magical land at any moment. And I haven’t seen Jill since we had that row.”

It had, Susan admitted, probably been her fault. At least Eustace had the sense to keep his mouth shut, but Jill had come bounding up to her, expecting her to be bowled over by a long story about giants and God knows what else, and it had set Susan’s teeth on edge. 

“I’m sorry,” she’d said, in the middle of a long excursus about stone letters, “but I really must dash before the shops close. I’m out of nylons.”

Jill was crestfallen. “Don’t you want to hear all about it?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“But why not?

Susan sighed. “Because Narnia was fun at the time, but it’s over for me now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you play at being a grown-up when you were a kid? As though you were practising for the real thing? Well, that’s what Narnia was like, and I’ve got the real thing now. I don’t want to keep remembering the game.”

“Narnia isn’t a _game_ ,” said Jill scornfully.

“That’s not what I said,” said Susan, but it was too late.

She shook her head. Edmund was saying, “…want to see you before the start of term. But you’re being coy. I bet you’ve had a better offer.”

“No! Well, I might go to a party. But that’s not why.” She curled the telephone cord around her finger. “Don’t you like it here, Ed?”

“What?”

“In England, I mean.”

“Of course I do.”

“But you would go back to Narnia, if you could?”

“Like a shot.”

“I wouldn’t. I like it better here. Don’t you remember when we were in Narnia, and the great thing was that we could do whatever we liked? Well, now I can do it all again, and it’s real this time. Nobody’s going to take it away from me.”

“Well, I like having both. It’s not an either-or.”

“But it is. Haven’t you noticed? You lot are still living in your own little world. It’s not what He would have wanted. Didn’t He tell you to get to know Him in this world?”

“Oh, is _that_ what you’re doing?”

“Don’t be a prig, Ed, I’m just having fun.”

“All right, you have fun. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back. And I’ll keep careful note of what the Professor eats, in case you want to advise him on his diet.”

“Thanks, Ed. You’re a brick.”

“Have fun at your party.”

She hadn’t seen him after that. He and Peter had come up to London the evening before the crash: she knew that, because he saved all his tickets in his wallet. And she _had_ been out. Perhaps they had come to her flat, rung the doorbell and received no answer. Or perhaps not. They had been in Marylebone, after all, nowhere near her. For some reason, they had dug up the rings, and then gone back to meet the others. And the others were on the same train as her parents. A terrible coincidence, said the newspapers. 

Susan knew better.

-

_Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again._

_Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day._

Late at night, she wondered. What if it _was_ just a coincidence? What if it wasn’t Him after all? Just a blind, cruel chance. There was a horrible pit in her stomach. She hadn’t felt worse since she sat all night with a dead God, but at least Lucy had been with her then.

Don’t You dare, she thought. I was with You when You died. I cleaned the blood from Your face. Don’t You dare leave me now!

It was a long time before she slept.

In the morning, there was a letter from Barbara Lowe. So sorry to hear – your wonderful parents – anything we can do? Barbara was at a women’s college. Her mother was still campaigning, was opening a school for orphans, should really have an assistant, she was working so hard. Did Susan, perhaps, know anyone…?

Susan thought about it. She had run a country, once. She had run rings around foreign governments. And she may not have had Peter’s courage, or Edmund’s brains, or Lucy’s faith, but she had looked after a little prince when his mother died, and made sure that he grew up happy. There were opportunities in America, if you worked hard. And God knew, there was nothing to keep her in England now. She wrote back to Barbara: when could she start?

-

She bought a ticket to New York. She sold the house. She only kept what would fit into a suitcase, and her mother’s best fur coat to wear on the voyage.

She walked briskly past the lions on Trafalgar Square. She tried not to think about running over, stretching up, patting one on the flank. She tried not to picture her handprint burning into soft gold, her fingertips burying into fur.

She dropped the bag of rings off Waterloo Bridge.

-

_Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?_

A gale blew her all the way to America. Once, she struggled onto deck, just to look over the side of the boat. Lucy had told her about the Sea People: about castles of pearl and turquoise hunting fish, and a damson-haired Sea Lady with a golden crown. Susan stared down at nothing but foam and heaving grey, and staggered back to her cabin to be sick.

And she remembered, with a shiver, Edmund’s story about the the Island of Dreams, the haunted face of Lord Rhoop. She had always wondered what she would have seen there. But she had never imagined anything worse than this. All of them dead, every single one. Was it some kind of punishment? She hadn’t wanted to talk about Narnia, and now she never would again.

That night she dreamed about climbing a slippery gorge, a Lion barely visible ahead. When she woke up, she rolled her eyes. “If You’re going to send me meaningful dreams,” she said to her cabin wall, “You might as well make more comforting. What about all of the others having a lovely romp with You in the sunshine?"

And then she laughed, because she knew exactly what He would say to that. “But I suppose that’s someone else’s story, isn’t it? Is that what You meant all those years ago?”

She’d always thought it was rot when He said that; thought that caring about other people’s stories was one of the most important things you could do. But perhaps He’d been right, in a way. She’d let someone else’s story define her for too long, though she knew that she never quite fit in it. But she was taking hold of her own story now. Whatever He wanted with her, He’d made His point: she couldn’t escape Him. Well, if He was going to follow her, He might as well do it her way.

One day she’d be twenty-eight, she thought. She’d never been twenty-eight before.

The storm only eased when they reached New York Bay, and a gentle snow began to fall as the boat nestled into dock. Susan finished her lipstick, picked up her suitcase, and left her cabin without looking back. The snow was falling thickly now. She pulled the fur coat snug around her neck, and stepped out into a crisp new world.


End file.
